Action: Ensuring the UCL Opening Ceremony raised awareness for Pepsi

Since 2015, Pepsi has been a partner of the UEFA Champions League Finals (football’s equivalent of the Superbowl). This year Fuse was tasked with working alongside Pepsi to identify and secure a globally renowned, contemporary artist to perform at the UCL Finals Opening Ceremony which is Presented by Pepsi. The artist selected would need to drive awareness for Pepsi, support its promotional plan across digital and PR and deliver a truly world class show.

Create: Partnering with Dua Lipa to deliver a world class opening ceremony

When presenting the right artist for Pepsi to partner with, we had to ensure they were culturally relevant, at the peak of their career and wouldn’t alienate the football audience. Our proposal: Dua Lipa who, at the end of 2017, was an ‘up and coming’ but still relatively unknown artist to the mainstream. Together with Pepsi, we anticipated the trajectory of her career and indeed by the time of the UCL Finals in May this year, Dua Lipa had become the most streamed female artist in the world with a global number one single.

For the first time, the Opening Ceremony, presented by Pepsi was streamed live via Facebook Live on UEFA’s channel, providing a guaranteed destination to watch the performance. To support the live performance, we pivoted media targeting towards a music-centric audience, broadening the scope of markets. We created a comprehensive media proposal to inform briefing and content production, resulting in more impactful supporting creative materials. Through a mix of paid Pepsi social spanning 24 markets and paid and organic support from UEFA and Dua Lipa, we were able to reach more than 338 million people worldwide.

The UCL Finals were watched by a total of 76 million people across the world, and the Opening Ceremony, presented by Pepsi performance was incredibly well received by both those in the stadium and watching the broadcast, building atmosphere and buzz before the match kicked off.